Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Vile

Offering a terminally ill man a 1 million dollar life insurance plan, to secure a vote in parliament. Just vile:

The widow of former B.C. MP Chuck Cadman says two Conservative Party officials offered her husband a million-dollar life insurance policy in exchange for his vote to bring down the Liberal government in May of 2005.

“The Tories actually walked in with a list of offers written down on a piece of paper. Included in their proposal was a $1-million life insurance policy – no small carrot for a man with advanced cancer,” the book states.

Dona Cadman, who is now running for the Conservatives in the Vancouver-area riding of Surrey North, was not in the office at the time. But she says her husband was furious when he returned to their apartment. “Chuck was really insulted,” she said in a telephone interview with The Globe Wednesday. “He was quite mad about it, thinking they could bribe him with that.”

Harper, the control freak, is of course oblivious, even though he admits the meeting was discussed, as well as the financial angle:

“They were legitimately representing the party,” Mr. Harper confirmed. “I said ‘Don't press him, I mean, you have this theory that it's, you know, financial insecurity, and you know, just, you know, if that's what you say make the case,' but I said ‘Don't press it.'.”

I'm not sure how anyone could defend this sort of tactic, it really is unbelievably crass.

From the story: Prime Minister Stephen Harper is quoted in the book, Like a Rock: The Chuck Cadman Story, as confirming that a visit took place, and that officials were "legitimately" representing the Conservative Party. But he says any offer to Mr. Cadman was only to defray any losses he might suffer due to an election.

Harper sure as heck admits that "financial insecurity" was mentioned prior to the meeting. Why is this discussed, unless a form of bribery wasn't entertained? The fact that Sandra "I misspoke" Buckler has quickly released a statement speaks to the need for damage control.

Cadman lost the CPC nomination in 2004 to one of Gurmant Grewal's people. The guy who went nuts and said Dosanjh tried to bribe him?

Strange things happen during that period. Still, the friendly terms that the Cadmans had with ex-Reformers needs to be taken into consideration. We don't know who the CPC officials are. It could a hodgepodge of people. I have my suspects but I am not a professional journalist. Besides I live in Southern Ontario anyway.

Harper is a control freak. But I don't think he has a say in many nomination battles, Brett Barr and Mark Warner notwithstanding.

Belinda Stronach was offered a cabinet position just before an important vote. What is the differance? Both were bribed.

Of course this is a Liberal site therefore you will all say there is a differance. Both parties bribed others for their gain - except the good old NDP, the offical opposition. Dion is considered a Con as proven by his voting record.

"Belinda Stronach was offered a cabinet position just before an important vote. What is the differance? Both were bribed."

And of course, rather than dealing with the issue at hand, we are offered a distraction. I guess, at the very least, you are prepared to admit the Cons are just as bad, looks to be much worse, than the Libs. A good first step...

Besides - anyone can get life insurance if you are willing to pay for for it. It may have cost the party a million dollars to buy the policy - perhaps they thought it looked better than directly giving him the money.

NWL - the timing of this means it would have come out in the middle of an election at the latest, so I am not sure I agree the cons wanted an election so badly because they were trying to get ahead of this.

Steve - what I think is relevant is what Harper is not saying. He has yet to deny this happened. He says that his "understanding" was that this was to compensate for election costs, which is the type of language one uses when they are trying to be careful.

Wilson, now we are getting somewhere... The party writes down on paper all of the things that come with being a Conservative member, one of which is life insurance coverage. This sounds much more likely than Gayle's proposition that the Conservatives said they would buy a million dollars worth of insurance for a million dollars. That is just pathetic.

And no, talking about the facts in this is not changing the subject. It is talking about the facts. And the fact is you can't go out and buy a mil$ worth of life insurance if you are about to die in the next few weeks. Just doesn't happen folks.

And, it was also reported that the Libs didn't offer Cadman anything, a plain fact you conveniently omit.

I'm glad you brought up Grewal, I think it will be interesting to see all the quotes from outraged Cons, talking about illegality. How rich, the pius indignation at the exact same time that their own operatives were engaged in said activities. Perfect.